Jessie Sheehan - Snackable Bakes

Snackable Bakes

100 Easy-Peasy Recipes for Exceptionally
Scrumptious Sweets and Treats

Jessie Sheehan

To my parents, for putting dessert on the table every night of the week (aka, for raising me right), and to Matt, for just about everything else.

Contents

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What Is a Snackable Bake?

I know what youre thinking (because, yes, Im not only the queen of easy-peasy baking, but Im also a mind reader), What on earth is a snackable bake and is it possible to get one in my belly right now?! Well, a snackable bake is an utterly scrumptious, round-the-clock treat that is quick and easy to assemble, requires limited equipment, and satisfies a sweets craving whenever it hits. And, yes, it is possible to enjoy such a bake sooner rather than later, because typically a snackable bake satiates the abovementioned craving in an hour or less. Oh, and to be clear, Im using the word bakes loosely here, as this book includes all kinds of snackable treats, but not every one of them requires an oven (youre welcome).

Why I Love Snackable Bakes and Why You Should, Too

I adore snackable bakes due to my voracious sweet tooth and my impatient nature. I dig making and eating from-scratch goodies on the regular, but Im not super fond of kitchen projects (croissants, layer cakes, even pie dough, Im looking at you). I like sweets and treats with short, pantry-staple ingredient lists (a snackable baker like myself isnt crazy about running to multiple grocery stores in order to make cookies) and straightforward, unambiguous instructions. I like assembling recipes using a bowl or two, a whisk, and a flexible spatula (in addition to being a snackable baker, I will also answer to one-bowl baker). And I love measuring ingredients with a scale when I bake because it means less cleanupand I wont lie: I despise cleanup.

Any chance this sounds a little like you? Oh, yay! I was hoping youd say that, as this book of 100 recipes for utterly mouthwatering snackable bakes is 100 percent for you. But you know what? Even if your idea of a good time is making a dessert that requires six different components be assembled over a 72-hour period, this book still deserves a place on your shelf. Because heres the thing: Snackable Bakes is for everyone who has a soft (and sweet) spot for making and eating delicious treats, such as Butter Cracker Toffee Bark with Toasted Nuts (). In other words, whether you identify as a snackable baker or not, if you like icebox cakes and buckles, puddings and snacking cakes, fudge and blondies, mousse and tiramisu, cookies and bark, there is something delightfully toothsome in here for you, too.

How I Came to Be a Snackable Baker

Although its fair to say that Im now the snackable bakes team captain, I didnt even begin as a team memberor baker, for that matter. I mean, my love of sweets goes way back, but it was a love born of Double Stuf Oreos, Drakes Devil Dogs, and Entenmanns chocolate chip cookies, with slices of Sarah Lee pound cake and a few Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos thrown in for good measure. There wasnt much baking from scratch happening in my childhood home, so there were no lessons learned at an apron-clad family members side, and my first word was decidedly not whisk. Moreover, there was acting and lawyering and mothering going on before there was ever baking.

And, funnily enough, when the baking first began, merely as a way to ensure that the sweets and treats I was purchasing and eating anyway were always on hand and in (relative) bulk), it wasnt of the simple, snackable variety. Instead, because I hadnt yet been bit by the easy-peasy bug, I was as ready as the next person to pull out my stand mixer for every recipe I tackled; to run to the store to search out special flours and sweeteners and unusual herbs and spices; to embrace delayed satisfaction when a cookie needed a 72-hour rest and a pie dough to be chilled overnight and then frozen prebake; and to prepare a birthday cake for one of my young boys that required not only three chocolate layers and a whipped ganache frosting, but also a flavored simple-syrup soak, and a from-scratch caramel filling (and dont even get me started on the mandatory piping of the Happy Birthday, which wasand still isa struggle).

But after a while, my enthusiasm waned for the aforementioned, drawn-out, multiple-stepped, project-like recipes, and as I flipped through the pages of Living, Cooks Illustrated, and Fine Cooking, magazines gifted to me by my mother-in-law (see for more on my MIL and her mags), as well as those of my favorite baking cookbooks by Martha Stewart, Dorie Greenspan, Shirley Corriher, and the smarties at King Arthur Baking Company, as well as others (yes, peeps, this was the olden days, before the internet was everyones favorite recipe source), it was the recipes for sweets and baked goods that all fit on one page, with an ingredient list no longer than a columnpreferably lessand with instructions that did not include In the bowl of a stand mixer... that I dog-eared. They were for candies that didnt require thermometers, donuts that didnt require frying, cinnamon buns that didnt require yeast, and cakes of a single layer with a simple glaze or buttercream (aka snacking cakes). In short, my lovely readers, an obsession with unfussy baking was born. I gravitated toward such recipes at home, when satisfying my own cravings or celebrating my then-toddler sons milestones (like the fact that wed all made it to Tuesday), but also professionally, as I started exclusively pitching and developing easy baking recipes, with all of the previously mentioned attributes of a snackable bake, to the different magazines, newspapers, and food sites to which I contribute. And, honestly, the rest is history (in the form of this cookbook).

Snackable Baking Is Having a Moment

As it turned out, I am not the only one with a fondness for uncomplicated treats. My fellow food folks now throw around the words one-bowl, simple, and fast with absolute abandon when describing sweets recipes for everything from ice cream to galettes to coffee cakes to meringues (for the record, I dont personally believe meringues belong in an effortless baking category, due to the egg white whipping that they require, but Im trying not to be too judge-y). I mean, snackable baking is legit having a moment and I couldnt be more excited to celebrate that with this cookbookan easy-peasy sweets book full of recipes that:

can all be assembled in about 20 minutes or less;

will never require you to cream softened butter, rest cookie dough, chill/freeze pie dough, or perform any other time-sucking task